Beatles fan spends eight years travelling England to photograph 131 namesake signs of the famous London address

Friday, January 10, 2014

A Beatles fan travelled across the country for eight years taking photographs of all 131 Abbey Road street signs in England. From rural lanes to inner-city estates and motorway sidings, Bryan Eccleshall, 48, crossed the length and breadth of the country to document each location where the famous street name could be found.

The centrepiece of his collection is a picture from Abbey Road in St John’s Wood, London, made famous by the 1969 Beatles album of the same name. Mr Eccleshall said inspiration for the project did not come from the iconic album cover, which features the Fab Four using the famous zebra crossing, but rather the Abbey Wood area near his home in south-east London. He said: 'I was living near an Abbey Road. I’ve been a fan of the Beatles since my late teens and to be living near to an Abbey Road - not the one made famous by the album, but a different one - tickled me. I began to wonder how many there were in England, and thinking about how the Abbey Road made famous by the Beatles is a "first among equals". 'The thought inspired me to bring them together in a collection. I wondered if I could photograph them all.'